Interview with Exploration Data Manager Anastasia Poole, Special Projects Manager Gokhan Erol, Region Director for North America Land Peter Jones, and Vice President for Land Wadii El Karkouri

How was the eNode solution designed to meet industry needs?

Anastasia: eNode solution nodes were designed with two main objectives in mind: to keep the cost low to make them accessible for everyone and make the deployment easier. With this ideal system—a million-channel system—we can get full-wavefield sampling and outstanding quality of seismic data never before seen on land.

Gokhan: With eNode solution, the low cost was a top requirement for the project, so we had to do things differently. We designed a made-for-purpose solution that gets rid of all the bells and whistles that are not necessary to do its function to achieve this low cost. Continuous improvement is in our DNA; at Schlumberger it's built into everything we do, so as we gain more operational experience with the eNode solution, it will evolve into something even better with time.

Peter: I think I can answer that in one word—flexibility. For decades our customers have been looking for high-quality data in a much faster time frame and as cheap as possible. With eNode solution technology, we are now able to give customers what they've been looking for. It's like we've been walking through a dark tunnel for almost half a century, and suddenly somebody turns the lights on.

What HSE benefits does the eNode solution provide?

Anastasia: From the environmental point of view, because they are so light, you can carry them yourself on foot; you don't need heavy equipment. It means in difficult areas—for example, forested areas of Siberia—you don't need to clear vegetation. For typical seismic operations, to layout seismic lines, you need to clear line paths of at least 4-m wide. This leaves almost permanent scars on the surface of the forest.

How is the eNode solution digitally enabled?

Wadii: The eNode solution consists of not only the node—the ground equipment that we utilize to record the data from the subsurface—but also has ancillary equipment that enables those nodes to be downloaded and charged and made available for continuous 24/7 recording. The eNode solution is complemented by high-end compute technology that enables us to transfer data directly from the field to the cloud so we can look at the data through the GAIA data discovery and marketplace platform. This provides operators and service companies access to high-end, high-resolution images of the subsurface in the fastest possible time frames.

Peter: The data quality that this technology can obtain is amazing, and we're all very excited to go forward on this journey. It really is a game-changing technology in our industry.